Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 2:38 pm on 14 March 2023.
Thank you. Well, I can't remember where I was when I referred to this, but I certainly did refer to the meeting that the Minister for food and farming in the UK Government held with supermarkets. I obviously meet with retailers, with processors and with farmers around food supply, but the Minister in the UK Government held a sort of supermarket summit, which, unfortunately, he didn't invite devolved administration Ministers to, which I think was a shame. So I raised this with him at the inter-ministerial group, as you say, and he basically said that supermarkets weren't to blame. I tried to explain about the contracts, because I think that point is very important. Now, I don't know what's going on in Kent, but I think you do raise a very important point—that we need to make sure that those contracts are absolutely fair. And it was very interesting at the time, when we were seeing shortages of fruit and vegetables in our supermarkets that we weren't seeing that in the greengrocers.
In relation to your question around the agriculture Bill, obviously, that sets sustainable land management as a framework for our future agricultural policy, and we're obviously approaching Stage 2 of the agriculture Bill next week. And what we can do to help is, obviously, any future farming policy and support will reward farmers for, obviously, not just addressing the climate and nature emergencies, but also for that sustainable food production.